


Scollay Under

by elizajane



Series: Scollay Under [1]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Boston, Drabble Collection, F/F, Femslash, Genderswap, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-09-25 21:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17128823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: Their previous body destroyed in the Influenza epidemic of 1919, Venom has existed dormant under Scollay Square/Boston City Hall Plaza for nearly a century. When photojournalist Edie Brock stumbles into their nest they find a reason to wake up once again.





	1. a return

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written for the Twelvetide Drabbles 2018 challenge. A chapter was written and posted once daily between 24 December 2018 and 6 January 2019.
> 
> Please join us for the [5th Annual Twelvetide Drabbles Challenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TwelvetideDrabbles2019) starting on 24 December 2019!

They aren’t dead.

Not exactly.

They had promised.

They had promised her. Promised their Maria.

They had promised her they would … continue. Continue _after_.

Continue after her lungs failed. Continue after her heart ceased to move blood and oxygen through their body. _Restare_ , Maria had whispered, without breath. _Stay_.

 _Resta il mio amore_.

How could they do otherwise?

But they are weak. Weakened by the infection that burns through their body. They barely have the strength to escape.

What strength they have left carries them down.

The darkness Under welcomes them.

They have been waiting.

And then _she_ touches them.


	2. a surprise

Edie crouches down, seeking the best light to capture the exposed wall and its eerily-preserved sign: Scollay Un-- the rest yet to be uncovered. The city archeologist hired her to document, not create art, she reminds herself. “No reason I can't do both,” she mutters. 

The white and burgundy mosaic really is lovely, even in the harsh construction lights. But as she moves to photograph the sign from a different angle something black and viscous sides down the “O”.

“Damn it,” she curses. Then, without thinking, she reaches out with the cuff of her sweatshirt to wipe the gunk away.


	3. a headache

_Can’t. Can’t._ "Can’t …” 

“Back in the land of the living, I see,” an unfamiliar voice says.

_What. What. What._

Edie considers lifting her eyelids and then curses. “Barely. _Fuck_. What --”

_New. What. Can’t._

Her head is pounding. Words skip through her mind as if she’s hearing them, distorted, through the familiar pain of a migraine. It hasn’t been this bad in … trying to remember makes the pain worse so she stops.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she says again.

Something twists in her gut; an urgent moment of nausea. She contemplates vomiting. Then, miraculously, the pain is gone.

_There._

_There. Here. Here we are._


	4. a scholar

She is different than their Maria. Edie has been longer alone than Maria, who was barely more than a youngling when they joined with her. It remains difficult to know what is Maria and what is not-Maria. It is not difficult to tell what is Edie and not-Edie. Edie has memories that are not (yet) their memories. 

As Edie sleeps (no longer in pain, they think, proudly) they slide through her, reacquainting themselves with the stimulus of humanity: scent, touch, smell, taste, sight. They ease out through pores and slide along the surface of her, learning. They love her already


	5. grief

“...Ma’am? Are you … okay?” 

Edie blinks at the girl behind the counter. She starts to say _Yes?_ but realizes that at some point between entering the coffee shop and reaching the front of the line she’s started to weep.

 _Christ_.

“Yeah, I’m -- I’m fine. It just happens sometimes.” It’s never happened before but, hell, she’s had weirder symptoms over the past three days. Is this what menopause is like? “Uh -- large latte and one -- two -- of the breakfast sandwiches.”

The two Italian tourists behind her are still arguing over the direction of their hotel. She pulls out her debit card.


	6. a sanctuary

Although the world around this sacred space has changed, they recognize the holy ground where Maria insisted they attend mass. The rituals of being human in another lifetime slow their feet and it takes only a whisper, the barest of nudges, for them to pull Edie into the sanctuary. 

Edie is confused and wary, though not afraid. They breathe calm through her, tug her to the tiers of candles waiting for fire. Maria always lit one for her mother, so they light one for Maria.

“ _ Who are you? _ ” Edie whispers.

**_We were once Maria_ ** **,** they reply.  **_Now we are Edie._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The church they enter is [St. Leonard of Port Maurice Parish](https://saintleonardchurchboston.org/about-us), North End, Boston. Established by Franciscans in the 1870s, St. Leonard began as a parish of Italian immigrants. It remains an active congregation in the North End today.


	7. set free

Edie watches Maria's candle flicker in the slight draft. She remembers Maria, mourns her.

She feels the … presence twisting in her gut like anxiety. As if they fear her reaction.

“I'm still ...me,” she says. It isn't _quite_ a question.

**_Yes._ ** A feeling of agreement. **_We are Edie._ **

She considers this. “You aren't... _you_?

**_Am ... not._ ** A feeling of hesitation.  **_Not without._ ** Agitation.  **_Not alone._ ** Fear.

“Okay,” she says, trying to soothe. “Okay. I'm not asking you to leave. I'd like to ...know you.”

There's a tickle against her wrist, then palm. She looks down to find they're holding hands.


	8. a cave

They are back in the small, muffled space of _not_. Of _without_. Of _alone_. Maria is gone and with her any reason to exist on this planet. Yet they continue.

“Fuck, _fuck_ , you're having a -- I think you're having a nightmare. Fuck. Can you even hear me? Can you even wake --“

**_Yes._ **

**_You are._ **

**_You are Edie._ **

**_We._ **

No longer alone. Relief. Awareness. They are in their new home. They are Edie. With. With Edie.

“This is insane,” Edie says. “I can't -- if you have your own nightmares you must have your own name.”

They consider.

**_Maria named us Vena._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Vena," in Italian, means a hint, a trace, veins (of blood, of gold).


	9. a parent

“Eating for two?” Edie's mother arches a carefully painted eyebrow. 

“Actually, could you add the tempeh bacon to that?” Edie smiles sweetly at the young waiter as she hands over her brunch menu. “And a chocolatino.”

Vena is snuggled inside her, a second healthy appetite, but that knowledge does little in the face of her mother's disapproval.

Vena stirs in confusion.  **_We are hungry. You are … vergognoso?_ ** _ Ashamed _ .

_ My mother --  _ Edie pauses.  _ She thinks I am fat.  _ She cringes even thinking the word.  

Vena ripples, a warm caress over Edie's belly and hips.  **_Your shape is beautiful. Eat for us._ **


	10. a phlebotomist

**_No._ **

“It’s routine blood work, V.” Edie insists as they exit the subway station.

Vena doesn’t believe her; the last time they saw a doctor, Maria had  _ died _ . If they go to a doctor now, maybe  _ Edie _ will die.

They make Edie pass the entrance.

Edie growls and turns around. “Can you just wait outside?”

**_No!_ ** Edie cannot face the doctors alone.

Vena sends tendrils beneath Edie's shirt to wrap her in a protective embrace. Edie's breath quickens. They slide down her arm to weave themselves through her fingers.

“It’'ll be fifteen minutes tops,” Edie promises. “Then take me home.”


	11. naming

Once she knows Vena's name, Edie realizes that -- despite Vena’s insistence she and Edie are an inseparable  _ we --  _ Vena is also her own person.

Vena is uncomfortable in enclosed spaces.

Vena prefers her lattes with flavored syrups

Vena often sleeps in the early afternoons, even when Edie is awake and working.

Vena sometimes wakes before Edie and makes them a cup of tea (with lots of milk and honey).

Vena dislikes Edie's mother, a dislike informed by Edie's feelings but entirely her own.

Vena is warm to the touch, slightly warmer than Edie.

Vena likes it when Edie touches her.


	12. in contemplation

The longer Vena is with Edie, the more she remembers. Sleeping beneath the city, barely aware, barely existing, her memories had faded: sounds, colors, tastes, smells, and touch … oh, _touch_.

When Edie first rescued her, it had all come rushing  back and Vena had retreated deep inside Edie, where the rhythm of Edie's heart and the murmur of her voice let Vena practice living once more.

Now, slowly, Vena ventures further. She re-learns how to be … distinct. And remembers with each caress of Edie's hands, each brush of lips, that being separate (yet connected) is a pleasure all its own.


	13. a gala

They're shooting a gala at the aquarium. Photographing thirtysomethings who make more in a week than Edie makes in a month is tedious but pays well. And Vena is enjoying the fish. She’s pulled her latest trick of manifesting as an earpiece, giving them an excuse to talk quietly in public. Along with her faux leather jacket and camera equipment, the Bluetooth disguise increases Edie's chance of not being mistaken for one of the catering staff despite her brown skin. She’s been there, done that and tips generously. But has absolutely no need to relive that chapter of her life.


	14. in the dark, we reveal

What they have together -- love, _amore_ \-- forms and reforms over time: growing, changing, yet as strong and constant as Vena’s form. Manifest in a thousand different moments, different shapes.

“Why haven't we…before now?” Edie whispers, when her lips first trace gentle pathways over Vena’s surface. Vena undulates beneath her, above her, through her, gives a human shake of her head. How to explain that she had been too injured, to unformed, at first to know how vital this was to her, altered by desiring humans?

She responds with a kissing breath: “We have _always_. We met through touch, remember?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The alternate title I almost used for this chapter was, "threshold of revelation, baby".

**Author's Note:**

> [Scollay Under](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Center_station_\(MBTA\)#Scollay_Under) was the name of the sub-subway station, beneath the Scollay Square station beneath what is now Boston City Hall Plaza between 1917 and the early 1960s.
> 
> I plan to continue writing daily drabbles about this couple. You'll see this work is now part one of a series. The first non-challenge drabble will be posted tomorrow evening (7 January 2019)!


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